غَائِطٌ

Full Definition

غَائِطٌ A wide, depressed piece of ground or land, but not much depressed, and in some instances having acclivities [bordering it]; sometimes, as they assert, a league (فَرْسَخ) in extent, and having in it meadows; and غَاطٌ and غَوْطٌ signify the same; or the last is more depressed than the غائط: and غائط is also applied to a valley: the pl. [of pauc.] is أَغْوَاطٌ, or this is pl. of غَوْطٌ, and [of mult.] غِيطَانٌ, which is pl. of both these sings., and غُوطٌ and غِيَاطٌ.
2 Hence, A place in which one satisfies a want of nature; the custom being to do so in a depressed place, where one is concealed. In the Kur [iv. 46, or v. 9], accord. to an extraordinary reading, it is written , [a form now commonly used, and signifying a garden, but there meaning a privy place,] the original form of which may be غَيْوِط, and then غَيِّط, [and then غَيْط,] it being contracted; or, accord. to Abu-l- Hasan, the ى may be originally و, these two letters being in this instance interchangeable. You say, أَتَى الغَائِطَ, and ضَرَبَ الغَائِطَ, He satisfied a want of nature; voided excrement, or ordure.
3 And hence, Human excrement, or ordure: because they used to cast it away in a غائط: or because they used to go thither to satisfy a want of nature.

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